


I Was Getting Better at Being Alive

by Anglophile_Rin



Series: Bad Things Happen [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Biting, Klave, M/M, Making Out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:47:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26254381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anglophile_Rin/pseuds/Anglophile_Rin
Summary: Klaus grinned, all lazy confidence. “I love biting,” he punctuated the statement by darting forward, catching Dave’s lower lip again and tugging it out only to release it with another smile. “It’s like kissing, except there’s a winner.”
Relationships: Klaus Hargreeves/David "Dave" Katz, Klaus Hargreeves/Original Male Character(s)
Series: Bad Things Happen [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1907365
Comments: 19
Kudos: 83
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	I Was Getting Better at Being Alive

**Author's Note:**

> My first submission on my first Bad Things Happen Bingo! I haven't posted anything in a hot minute, and this is my first in TUA, so it was high time to blow the dust off and just jump in. 
> 
> Bingo Square: Biting  
> Fic title is from the song Analog Boy by dbmk, which is an awesome Klave song, I highly recommend.

Klaus couldn’t help but get his teeth involved.

In his early twenties he had briefly dated a guy with a lip ring. Whenever they made out, he would inevitably get the ring between his teeth, tugging on it. The guy kicked him out when he pulled a little too hard, the taste of copper on Klaus’ lips long after he’d moved on with someone else in a club down the street.

And then, there was Dave. Sweet Dave. Being gay in the army in the 1960s meant he barely _kissed_ the guys he fooled around with, much less anything more exciting. The first time Klaus had nipped his lower lip he’d jerked back, eyes wide, a flush spread across his cheeks.

“Did you just _bite_ me?”

Klaus grinned, all lazy confidence. “I love biting,” he punctuated the statement by darting forward, catching Dave’s lower lip again and tugging it out only to release it with another smile. “It’s like kissing, except there’s a winner.”

(Despite being the biggest sci-fi nerd Klaus knew, the reference obviously flew over Dave’s head. But one day, Klaus reasoned, he’d see New Who, and he’d appreciate it for what it was.)

It had taken a few more handsy make-out sessions behind broken down jeeps and sandbag walls before Dave finally returned the favour.

(Klaus had read something about love languages, once; how people gave what they wanted to receive. Didn’t it just make sense that Klaus Hargreeves of the Umbrella Academy’s love language was a little light violence?)

Dave went too hard, sharp incisors cutting into the thin skin of Klaus’ bottom lip, right on the line where the flesh turned pink. He realized right away, pulling away in horror, ready to apologize, to pet, to soothe. But Klaus moaned - actually full-on moaned, like Dave had done something right, something so incredibly right, and the sound had Dave turning hard in his pants while Klaus pulled him back in with a hand on the back of his neck, both their mouths turning slick and warm, a strong scent in the air like a handful of pennies. For days afterwards, Dave would catch Klaus worrying his lower lip, swiping his tongue over the ridges Dave’s teeth had left behind.

Klaus liked when Dave bit him. Liked it best when he left marks behind. He liked to prod at them, press his thumb in or graze fingertips over the indents.

Dave, it turned out, liked the marks left behind, too. A claim left behind on skin no one else got to see. He liked to see a blotch of red peek out from under Klaus’ shirt collar. He liked to watch Klaus absentmindedly running a thumb across the inside of his thigh. He really liked the full, almost circular set he left on the inside of Klaus’ forearm, so obvious in what it was, always out for anyone and everyone to see. He liked remembering the way Klaus had squirmed when Dave had run his tongue from wrist to elbow, grazing his teeth over the same path before biting down, a slow, firm pressure that made the best impressions. He liked the sounds Klaus made when the mark started to fade and Dave had lined his mouth back up to refresh it (not the best idea, as it turned out. The bruised skin gave way more easily and Klaus had laughed, claiming Dave wanted to leave a scar, a claim that ‘Dave was here,’ for Klaus to carry forever, and wasn’t the tattoo on Klaus’ abdomen proof enough?

“I can’t read Thai.” Dave had countered, soothing over the broken skin with feather-light kisses. “Anyone can read _this_.”)

The marks were still the fresh, angry red of a new wound when Dave was shot. A perfect dental impression on Klaus’ arm. The absurd thought that the army could use it to identify Dave’s body made Klaus laugh, a single sharp, hysterical sound cutting through his heaving breaths and wet pleas to stay, please stay, don’t go Dave, no, no, no…

....

Lying in Kitty’s bed, unable to sleep at night, stuck in Dallas in the year 19-fucking-60, Klaus ran light fingertips across the fading marks for weeks, a month, two. ‘Dave was here’. He was real. He had loved Klaus, he wrote it on his body.

Klaus didn’t scar easily. Probably a good thing, overall. His track marks all faded, there was no ugly, jagged line from when he had broken his jaw. But, maybe this one time, he would. Maybe this one mark would last. No one Klaus knew could read Thai, but anyone could read _this_.

(Of course, it didn’t. Klaus never got what he wanted.)

When Klaus saw Dave again - boyish and baby-faced, but still Dave, _his_ Dave - the boy who would become the love of his life wouldn’t see any sign of the claim he’d make on Klaus. No ‘Dave was here’. Just a declaration inked in a language he didn’t understand, on skin he had never marked. Like he’d never been there at all.


End file.
